Random thoughts and blurbs from the founder for Shugo – Rick Hymanson. Who's Boda? It's a word my 7 year old made up when he was 2.

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Why I work on Memorial Day

I love when people ask: why are you working on a holiday? Isn’t it a day off?

Yes it is — but I choose to work. Why?

No phone calls & very few new emails = an abundance of quiet allowing me to catch up on overdue tasks and code!

Pretty simple eh? For example, let’s take today — Memorial Day 2013. All day I’ve had ZERO phone calls and a total of TWO new important emails to read. This meant I was able to concentrate on some overdue coding items, design some new PUSH features, write this blog post and test a new payroll software integration (and I’m leaving the office by 2 pm). If this had been a normal Monday, I may have been lucky to get one of them completed.

Now don’t take this as me saying that I’m just too busy, blah blah blah. It’s just me sharing why I choose to work on holidays. And no, I don’t work on every holiday. The major ones are definitely complete days off (notice the plural).

And no, not everyone at Shugo works on holidays. It’s just something I do and something my wife “allows”. I say “allows” jokingly but without her support, there’s no way I’d be able to do it. I have the easy job — she has 3 kids to take care of under the age of 5. Unfortunately, that’s a job with no holidays…

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One thought on “Why I work on Memorial Day”

We do the same thing here. We’re off on the more major holidays (we were off yesterday), but things like Columbus Day and Washington’s birthday are “catch up” days here. We can’t technically process anything, so it’s our time to do those things that always get pushed back (like reorganizing the supply cabinet and Outlook folders) because we’re busy, you know, running payrolls. Taking the time on holidays to do those little things really help on the busy days so we know exactly where everything is and are more efficient because we are well prepared.

Same concept goes when I’m home without the kids. Taking a nap seems glorious, but if I take just a few moments to make sure all the bottles are washed, clothes are organized and put away, diapers and wipes are stocked and snacks are readily available, our whole week seems to go so much smoother. Then I can really enjoy that nap! 🙂